The Holocaust

A Dirge for my Nation !

by Yoav Katz of blessed memory

By the rivers of the Tiber,
Wisla, Rhine, and Dnieper, where we sat for years and years, generations and
generations, and wept for Zion [1].

Our heart went out for that
beautiful and good land that was bestowed upon our fathers, and from where we
were exiled due to a decree from the Most High, who became strange to us, and
hid his face from us.

Behold, how bitter is our lot
in this generation, that at the time of our return to our land and the
renaissance of our people from slavery to freedom and servitude to liberty,
this was decreed upon us, Oh! That we should sit by our rivers 
the rivers of our land that has been shaken out of its desolation and
lowliness, and here, in particular here, in the midst of our redeemed land
 and lament, weep and eulogize the many myriads of our brethren who were
destroyed and annihilated in all of the lands of the Diaspora in which members
of our nation found themselves.

How great and scalding is the
pain over this breech that took place to our nation on the threshold of the
renewal of its national life.

My heart, my heart goes out to
the multitudes of our brethren, giants of spirit and thought, great in Torah
and piety, great in fine deeds, entire communities, filled with the human
flocks, our brethren of the House of Israel, upright and pure people, who ate
their bread through the toil of their hands, visionaries and poets, believers
and scribes, teachers and cheder students who never tasted the taste of sin.

Oh! Zgierz, my bereaved
city of Zgierz, it is not for you that we await with our pining and
longing You became strange to us, a cruel mother, a darkened land. Our
heart goes out, beats, and pines with our entire being for the myriads of our
relatives who had their graves dug in your midst, upon your fields and your
forests.

Our parents, brothers, sisters,
and all who were dear to us who were turned to dung upon the face of your
fields, to fertilize your plantations and crops. We will never forget them
forever!

Pillaged Zgierz along with all
of your sisters, the cities of Poland, your sisters in murder and annihilation,
fortunate is he who will repay you when your day comes, and the blood will be
avenged.

{536}

In One Day

by W. F.

(Wednesday, 15th of Shvat 5700, December 27, 1939.)

Thirty-five years have passed
since that dark day when shots were fired, and the entire Jewish population
left their hometown of Zgierz.

On that day, confusion and
terror enveloped the big and the small, the poor and the rich. Children lost
their parents and parents searched for their children. The weeping and
screaming could be heard on all of the streets.

Driven to the old marketplace,
with their packs over their shoulders, the Jews of Zgierz fled into the forests
with the fear of death, that only the eyes that saw could believe. The largest
group of them fled to Lodz, a smaller group went to Glowno, and only a very few
set out and arrived in Warsaw. In their despair, the unfortunate souls could
not imagine that all of the roads were leading to a strange ending, to death.

Thus in one day did end the
flourishing Jewish community of Zgierz, that numbered 5,000 souls and was bound
up with the city throughout the 200 year history with intertwined work for its
growth and development. It ended  for not only were our holy shrines
burnt, but the despicable people even desecrated the 150 year old cemetery and
covered it over with earth, so that there would not remain even a memory of
Jewish life on Zgierz soil.

For us, the survivors, lies the
great and holy duty to observe this memorial day and perpetuate it forever.
This should be a day of memory and warning  for us and for our children.

Just as we light the memorial
candles for our martyrs, we also must not forget the curse and the eternal hate
for the disgusting criminals and murderers of the Jewish people.

We who remain in sorrow should
find comfort in the work for those close to us, and in the work to perpetuate
the memory of our martyrs  our parents, our brothers and sisters,
relatives and friends  and the entire community of Zgierz. May their
memory be blessed!

{537}

Jews of Zgierz Under the German Occupation of Terror

by Danuta Dąbrowska and Abraham Wein of Jerusalem

The Tribulations Began During the First Days of the War

On the eve of the Second World
War, there were approximately 4,800 Jews in Zgierz, out of a general population
of 25-30 thousand residents of the city.

Already during the first days
of the war, refugees began to stream into Zgierz, both Jews and Poles, from the
towns of the border regions that had been immediately occupied by the Germans.
The German air bombardment of the city began on September 3rd, 1939. It lasted for three days, until September 6th. For the most part this took place during the day; one could breath a bit
easier at night. The bombardment, which was directed at the train station as
well as the outskirts, cased fires and destroyed houses. There were also
casualties. The bombardment was very strong on Tuesday, September 5th. It hit houses in the center of the city. The evangelical church was
destroyed, as was the German Theater on Pilsudski Street. There were also
victims from among the children. The following Jews were wounded from a bomb
that fell in the neighborhood of Narotowicza and Dombroskiega Streets: Leibel
Librach the son of Asher, his wife Esther who was the daughter of Yitzchak Meir
Zylberberg, and their only daughter Sara.

The Jewish population, as well
the Polish population, started to panic and began to flee en masse to the
surrounding cities: Lodz, Strikow, Ozorkow, Piontek, and even Warsaw. The
tramways that connected Lodz with the nearby towns ceased their usual routes.
The trains were full of Polish soldiers and officials were being evacuated
along with their institutions. The refugees filled up all the routes.

In the meantime, the Nazi
soldiers approached the city. On September 6th, the evacuation of the Polish authorities took place as the culmination point:
the police, the firemen, and the officials of the magistrate headed by the
mayor all left the city in haste. Chaos prevailed. There were no electric
lights in the city, and the streets were dark. The Polish riffraff began to
rob the Jewish businesses.

On Thursday, September 7th, the city was taken over by the German military. The first German soldiers
were seen at 10:00 a.m.

According to the testimony of
several eyewitnesses, the German soldiers, prior
to their entry into Zgierz, murdered in a bestial fashion five Jewish refugees
who were on their way from Zgierz to Strikow. The Zgierz merchant Zusman was
among them. The soldiers robbed the refugees and then murdered them in a cruel
fashion.

(Another version relates the
story in the following way: Gershon Zusman was on his way to Dombrowka with
his children when the Germans captured him and shot him. According to this
version, the victims were forced to dig a grave for themselves prior to their
death.)

On the next day, September 8th, on the second day of the marching in of the Germans, the soldiers began to
rampage in the city. They captured Jews in the streets and also took them from
their houses. The several hundred captured men were rounded up in the old
marketplace, in front of the building of the magistrate and were surrounded by
guards. A few Poles and local Germans were included among the arrested. They
took everything from the Jews, including money and jewelry. After that, the
arrested people were taken to the Catholic church, where nearby lay a few dead
German soldiers who fell during the battle. In the presence of the fallen,
they announced to those arrested that they would be held responsible for every
German soldier who might be killed in the city and region. The few arrested
Germans were freed. The Poles were still held, but separate from the Jews.
(According to one witness, the arrested Jews included: Mendel Gibralter, the
pharmacist Rosenberg, Nachum Kaminski, Moshe Itzkowicz, Berl Helman (the
undertaker), Avraham Yaakov Rodzinek, and several others who I no longer
remember.) The Germans lined the Jews up into two rows, and had to remain
standing for hours with machine guns pointed at them. A few times, a German
functionary came to them and threatened that shortly the church would be torn
down or burnt. The Germans constantly beat the Jews with deathblows, and a few
Jews had half of their beards burnt off.

On the first day, they allowed
the prisoners to go out to attend to their physical needs, but on the second
day, they even forbade that. The prisoners were not given food or drink. The
Zgierz Jews intervened when it was possible. Apparently after they gave
bribes, the Germans permitted giving a little bit of food and water to the
prisoners (once in three days). Yehuda Borkowski's wife brought the food.
Among the guards that watched over the prisoners, there were a few Austrians
who had some compassion for the prisoners. Quietly, so that their German
friends would not see, they brought a drink of water to the Jews from time to
time.

On the morning of the Sabbath
(according to a few eyewitnesses, it was Sunday), the Germans took out two Jews
from the church  Fishel Grynsztejn and Mordechai Zelmanowicz. People
were afraid that they were going to shoot them. However, they shortly
returned, and it became clear that the Germans summoned them to transport the
corpses of Dr. Zygmunt Kaltgard and his sister Kama, who had committed suicide,
to the cemetery. They had poisoned themselves. A large group of Zgierz Jews,
who were lucky enough not to find themselves among the prisoners, attended the
funeral.

This case of suicide was not a
unique occurrence in Zgierz. There were other Jews who were psychologically
unable to bear the indignities and persecutions of the first days of
occupation. Two young women who came from Przemysl and worked as druggists in
Rosenberg's drugstore also committed suicide.

The prisoners were freed on
Sunday, September 10th. One of the local Germans, the scribe of the magistrate's office, lectured
them and warned them that in the future, they must be loyal to the German
authorities. By a stroke of good fortune, the rabbi of Zgierz, Rabbi Shlomo
Yehuda Leib HaKohen of holy blessed memory, wan not among the prisoners. It is
told that on the second day of the occupation of Zgierz, a German officer came
to him and asked to visit his house. He spoke politely to the rabbi and
explained that a difficult period was coming for the Jews. He made the
pretence, perhaps even with sincerity, that he had compassion for the Jews.
When the rabbi remarked that the Germans are known as a people of culture, and
that they certainly would not deal treacherously with innocent people, the
officer was silent.

The local Germans, that is to
say the Volksdeutschen [2], who were on good
terms with the Jews prior to the war, completely ended their relations with the
Jews very shortly after the marching in of the Wehrmacht. They began to cause
trouble for the Jews, who were their acquaintances and neighbors. The Jews
suffered in particular from the Volksdeutsche Strobach, who at that time became
the mayor (Bergenmeister) of the city. Not far behind him in demonstrated
hatred and persecution for the Jews were two other Volksdeutschen: the
aforementioned official Mille, and Kerner.

Constant persecutions against
the Jews of Zgierz began. The soldiers, the S.S. members, and the local
Germans beat and tortured Jews on the streets, organized lapankes [3],
conducted searches and robbed Jewish houses. Daily, various anti-Semitic
ordinances and decrees were issued. A curfew was declared for the Jews between
5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. They were forbidden to gather together for public
prayer. The synagogue, Beis Midrash, and shtibels were closed. The ban was
applicable even to prayer quorums (minyans) in private houses. The Germans
threatened severe punishments, including the death penalty, for any Jew who
disobeyed the ordinances. With a heavy heart, the rabbi was forced to declare
to the Jews that they should not organize private minyans on the eve of Yom
Kippur.

No small amount of fear was
awakened in the Jews when the decree was issued that the entire Jewish
population (according to another version  only the men), must register.
The Germans imposed the duty to conduct the registration upon the community
itself.

The Jews suffered a great deal
of vexation from the local Polish population. The tribulations from the Polish
anti-Semites were especially difficult with respect to attempts to obtain food.
There was a shortage of food during the first weeks of the German occupation.
When long lines formed outside the bakeries in the evenings, the anti-Semites,
or the ordinary hooligans, threw the Jews from the kolejkes [4];
it also happened that they turned over Jews into the hand of the Germans.
Indeed, the nightly attempts to obtain a morsel of bread were fraught with
mortal danger. On more than one occasion, the attempt of someone to obtain a
bit of food for his family would end with a beating or even death blows.

As has previously been
mentioned, there were incidents of robbing from Jews by the riff-raff already
in the first days of confusion at the beginning of the war. After that, when
the Germans took over the city, the robbery became widespread. On the Sabbath
of September 9th, the Germans perpetrated a massive pogrom upon the Jewish stores on Pilsudski
Street. They pillaged and destroyed the businesses of Mandel, Korcacz,
Bechler, Spiewak, Yitzchak Grand and others. The owners were cruelly beaten.
They did not even spare women.

Many Jewish merchants closed
their businesses during the first days of the occupation for fear of robbery.
However the mayor (bergenmeister) Strobach strongly warned that people must
keep the businesses open, and threatened severe penalties for those who did not.

A series of searches in Jewish
homes began on September 10th. The pretext was that Jews held arms, and that they were engaged in food
speculation, an activity that carried with it the death penalty. During this
opportunity, money, jewelry, food, clothing, linens and furniture were removed
from the Jewish homes. During the searches, the Germans and their assistants
sadistically destroyed the Jewish homes: they tore apart the floors, destroyed
the ovens, pillaged the cellars, and simply made mayhem.

In the following weeks of the
occupation, the new civic authorities granted the robbery a stamp of
legality so to speak through their ordinances: all Jewish stores,
enterprises and factories were requisitioned. The factories were provided with
German commissars (Treihender), who oversaw their operations. Rosenbaum's
pharmacy was also requisitioned. The Germans issued ordinances that required
the Jews to register their gold, silver, jewelry and other items of value,
including their furs.

As in other places under German
occupation, the Jews of Zgierz were permitted to possess 2,000 marks of ready
cash. The remainder had to be deposited in a spare account, which
for all practical purposes meant that the money was taken from them.

Another form of theft was the
contributions that the Germans imposed upon the Jews. They required the Jews
to pay two contributions. The witnesses related the following sums: 10,000
Zloty, 50,000 Zloty, 100,000 Zloty and even 250,000 Zloty; it is difficult to
establish the exact amount.

The first contribution was
imposed right after Sukkot 5700 (1939) [5]. Three weeks later, the Germans
suddenly arrested twenty prominent citizens as hostages, among them the rabbi,
the dozor and communal head Aharon Hersch Kompel as well as several Jewish
manufacturers and merchants or their wives (Mrs. Poznerson, and Mrs. Aranson).
After a few hours, German functionaries came to the hostages and ordered them
to produce detailed lists of their assets. Afterwards, the Germans demanded a
new contribution from the Jews and forced the hostages to underwrite an
obligation that they would pay it the next day by ten o'clock. The hostages
were freed from arrest once they underwrote the obligation. The contribution
was paid according to the set terms; it was given over to the aforementioned
functionary.

Slavery, Humiliation and Torture

Jews were conscripted for work,
for the most part hard and dirty labor, already in the first days of the
occupation. TheVolksdeutschen and police grabbed Jews as individuals or in
groups. Those who succeeded in hiding were tracked down and chased in the
homes, and dragged out of their hiding places. During the time of their labor,
the Jews were beaten with deathblows, tortured, and degraded. The women were
told to remove their dresses. Wearing only their shirts, they had to wash the
floors of the offices and barracks with their dresses. They were forced to
clean latrines with their bare hands. In such a manner, for example, the
Volksdeutsche Brand went into the home of the Grand family and grabbed two
women  Guta Grand (today Fein) and Chava Zylberberg  beat them and
then forced them to wash the corridors of the magistrate. A day later, that
same German brought a group of women  Gittel Grand and Waks (dentists),
Glowinska (from the iron works in the old market), and Fela Boaz  into
the building of the seminary near the train station, and forced them to wash
the windows with broken panes for an entire day, without food or a drink of
water.

A short time later, the
Germans, over and above the wild Lapankes [6], set up forced labor for the Jews
of Zgierz. They forced the community to provide daily a large contingent of
Jews for the work (one witness mentioned the number as 200). The Jews were
employed by various enterprises in town, including in military positions. Work
groups gathered together each day in front of the communal building, and from
there they were led to their work under a guard consisting of police and
Volksdeutschen. The Jews suffered from the seven fires of hell on their way to
and from work, and also while at work. They were beaten, chicaned and mocked
before the eyes of the masses. A group of rich Jews was able to elude the fate
of the slave laborers; they hired proxies from among the destitute people who
had lost all means of livelihood.

The Git Lusmieci [7] was a
steady place of hard work for the Jews. About forty men were employed there in
unloading the garbage and in dragging (four Jews were harnessed to one wagon).
One day, one of the workers, a young boy by the name of Skosowski (Zalman
Feldscher's grandson) did not wish to laugh when a soldier of the guard played
a joke on another Jew. For that, that young boy was shot on the spot. Similar
attacks were a common occurrence during the time of work.

At the work place not far from
Lustgarten on Piotkowska Street, where the Jews worked with the
stodoles [7], a soldier noticed a watch on Hershel Kaliski, and asked him to
give it to him. When Kaliski refused, the solder shot him.

Murder came to Jews at every
occasion, and for the smallest pretexts. Only a small number of the names of
the victims are known. For example, Wolf Szietonski was severely wounded.
Shimon Zusman's brother Gershon was shot. Prior to his execution, the
murderers forced him to dig a grave for himself. The Zgierz Jew Leibel Librach
was shot in Strikow. In the cellar of Meir Szwarc's house, under Rosenberg's
pharmacy, the Germans set up an inquisition room, where they tortured and
flogged Jews. Among others, the coal exporter Dubin was interrogated there.

If the above mentioned murders
had accidental characteristics, the sending (in November 1939) of
Jewish notables and party activists to the Radogoszcz Concentration Camp near
Lodz was already an organization aktion with the aim of killing members of the
Jewish intelligentsia and cultural activists. Like other cities in Warthegau
(the Polish western realm, under occupation of the Reich; to which Zgierz
belonged) and first and foremost in Lodz, in November 1939, there were arrests
and expulsions of Jews as well as the Polish intelligentsia to Radogoszcz. The
following names are known from among the Zgierz Jews who were arrested and sent
there: Karol Eiger (the president of the Maccabi, the son of the well-known
Zionist activist Moshel Eiger), Avigdor Roszalski, Avraham Zylbersztejn,
Leibush Srebnik, and Yosef Pantel. The same fate overtook several Polish
personalities in the city, including the previous mayor Szwiercz, the director
of the gymnasia, and others.

From the first days of the
occupation, the Germans conducted anti-Jewish propaganda efforts directed
towards the Polish population in Zgierz. Placards were posted in the streets
that incited the Poles against the Jews and promoted rumors that Jews were
speculating with food, causing difficulty in obtaining approvals. The
Hitlerists placed anti-Jewish slogans, caricatures, etc. in the windows of
various Jewish premises. For example, the window of Moshe Sidlowski's
requisitioned manufacturing enterprise was always decorated with Der
Stuermer with the large type headline of its articles: The Jews
are our enemies, The Jews are warmongers, etc.

Along with the anti-Jewish
incitement propaganda, the Hitlerists conducted activities that mocked the
Jewish religion and denigrated the national honor of the Jews. For example,
they forced Jews, at the time of their forced labor, to wash floor, trash bins,
and lavatories with tallises and parochets [8]. During the time of the
searches, the removed Torah scrolls, tefillin, tallises, and mezuzas from the
Jews, and they beat their owners in a bloody fashion. Pages of books were
desecrated, torn into pieces and burnt in the marketplace, along with other
holy objects.

A beloved activity of the
Hitlerists and their accomplices was the shaving off of the beards and peyos of
Jews. The shaving was more tearing, plucking and burning than shaving. On one
occasion, the Germans forced the victim to eat the shorn hair. Despite all
this, G-d fearing Jews did not want to part with their Divine image, and bound
their faces with kerchiefs under the pretext of being in pain, so that their
beards and peyos would not be noticed by the murderers. Once, the German
police brought the rabbi to the barber's chair and bid him to have his beard
and peyos cut. Then, they brought the rabbi to the dozor Kompel and ordered
him to pay for the rabbi's shave.

Almost every Sunday, and
sometimes on weekdays, the Volksdeutschen along with
the Wehrmacht soldiers organization large scale plays in which the victims were
Jews. They grabbed Jews, forced them to don tallises and tefillin or women's
clothing, put women's hats, wigs, or ordinary pail on their heads. The victims
held Chinese lanterns or brooms in their hands. Then, they forced the Jews to
sing Hatikva, Das Shtetele Belz, or Russian songs. The
Jewish actors had to shout the slogans: All Jews are swine,
We Jews are responsible for the war, etc. The participants in such
a performance then had to perform gymnastics, jump, crawl on the ground, dance,
and drag the fireman's wagon. Not infrequently, hundreds of Jews would take
part in such a performance  and the jeering lasted for a long time. The
witnesses mention the following people among other tortured Jews of Zgierz:
The lawyer Jochwet (Eliezer Shlumiel's brother-in-law), Mordechai Srobka, the
dozor Kompel, David Dawidowicz, Shimon Zusman, Mordechai Jakubowicz, and
others. On one Sunday, the Germans forced a few hundred Jews into the new
marketplace, and from there to the fire station, where they were told to lie
with their faces in the dirt, as they were beaten with death blows. As the
witnesses relate, Shlomo Bialystocki and Yechiel Kompel were among the wounded
who died later.

On another occasion (probably
in November), the German dragged Shabtai Itzkowicz, Reichmanen and Mrs. Gitel
Grand to the building of the Polish school, and asked them to tear down the
cross from the wall and throw it on the street. When the Jews absolutely
refused to do this, the murderers beat them and threw them in jail.

The culmination point of the
violation of the sanctity of Israel was the burning of the synagogue and Beis
Midrash. The first attempt to burn down both buildings (apparently, this took
place on October 27, 1939) did not succeed, for the neighboring Jews succeeded
in extinguishing the fire and saving the Torah scrolls, which were later
transferred to canopies in the cemetery. The Hitlerists quickly found
the guilty party. The arrested the tinsmith David Gotlieb, who
lived close to the Beis Midrash. They accused him of setting the building on
fire. Gotlieb spent six weeks in jail. One month later (apparently on
November 24, 1939), the Germans set the synagogue and Beis Midrash on fire for
a second time, and this time, they succeeded. Both buildings were completely
burnt down. On that critical night, when the synagogue was still in flames, a
group of German soldiers, Volksdeutschen and firemen came to the rabbi and
demanded of him a payment of 250 Zloty as payment for their effort in
saving the Jewish homes from the fire. According to another version of
the story, they demanded the sum in payment for the benzene that they needed in
order to ignite the buildings. The rabbi asked that they wait until the next
day so that he could collect the money. However, they requested that he
immediately go to the dozors of the community to collect the money. Along the
way, they forced the rabbi to stand and look at the fire for a long time.
Other witnesses relate that they brought the rabbi to the magistrate, and
forced him to write a declaration that the Jews alone (or himself alone)
ignited the school and the Beis Midrash.

They also destroyed or
demolished all of the shtibels in Zgierz  the Gerer, Sochaczewer,
Strykower, and Aleksandrer. It is not clear if this happened during the first
months of the occupation, or after the expulsion of the Jews of Zgierz.

They also desecrated the Jewish
cemetery. The Polish population played an active role in this. On one
occasion, on a Saturday morning, the Poles broke the large wooden fence of the
cemetery and began to steal the boards. One Jew, together with Berl Helman the
undertaker, ran to the magistrate and requested intervention. They were told
that the police would become involved, but in fact, they did nothing. A few
hours after the deed, two policemen came, but there was not even a remnant of
the fence left. Some time later, after the expulsion of the Jews from Zgierz,
they removed all of the tombstones and broke down the canopies that covered the
graves of the rabbis. They paved streets with the stones, and they uprooted
the very old pine trees to use for lumber. Finally, the Germans ploughed over
the Zgierz cemetery and covered it with earth.

The Jews of Zgierz had to
persevere many other persecutions and vexations that the Germans perpetrated
against the Jews, as in other places. Thus, in November 1939, the command was
issued for Jews to wear a yellow band on the sleeve of their outer garments.
One month later, an ordinance was issued, exactly as in other places in
Warthegau, that the Jews of Zgierz must wear a yellow Star of David on the
breast and shoulder of their outer garments.

A ghetto was not created in
Zgierz, but the Jews suffered no small amount of tribulation from the constant
evictions from the choicest dwellings. At the time of an eviction, they were
not allowed to take anything with them. Thus, for example, did they evict all
of the Jewish residents of Tauber's house on Pilsudski Street within one hour.
Included among those evicted was the textile manufacturer Yaakov Meir Kupfer,
who was kicked out of his dwelling without anything. He went to live in the
house of Yosef Meir Haron (the owner of the dyeing factory), however not too
long thereafter, the Germans also evicted all of the Jewish residents of that
house as well.

The number of Jews in Zgierz
began to decline during the months of September-December, 1939 for many Jews
voluntarily left the city during the time of the battle, and also
thereafter, in an attempt to flee the Hitlerist persecutions. A group of them
fled to Lodz, but the majority fled to the cities under the Generalgouvernement
(the central authority of occupied Poland). A number of Jews of Zgierz
succeeded in stealing across the borders and arriving in areas that were
administered by the Soviets. From among those who fled to those areas, a large
number of Zgierz residents fell into the hands of the Germans, and were
murdered very quickly at the time of the beginning of the Soviet-German war; a
few perished due to the tribulations of hunger, cold, illness, and hard labor,
and a larger number succeeded in surviving there until the liberation. Most of
the refugees (aside from the youth) were from the upper classes; most of the
Jews of modest means remained in the place, for they did not have the means to
pay for travel. In total, approximately 2,000 Jews were left Zgierz in this
manner, that is to say, close to a half of the Jewish population of Zgierz.

{548}

The Beginning of the End

The liquidation of the Zgierz
community took place at the end of December 1939. On Tuesday, December 26 (14
Tevet 5700) the Germans issued an order that all Jews must leave Zgierz. They
threatened the death penalty to anyone who transgressed this order. The Jews
were to gather together at 7:00 a.m. in the Sokol sports arena. They had a
baggage limit of 25 kilograms and a cash limit of 50 Zloty per person. Prior
to the execution of the order, those who had the means (and only a few Jews had
the means) left the city on their own volition and brought with them a few of
their belongings. Already in their first steps out of the city, the Germans
and Poles robbed those Jews, and did not spare them beatings and persecution.
The majority of the Jews, about 2,500 people, gathered together the next day at
the specified gathering point. There, the Germans doled out cruel beatings
right and left. They stole the money and baggage from some of the Jews. After
this introduction, they were driven towards Glowno, which belong to the
Generalgouvernement. Along the way, the German guards threatened the Jews with
shots if they would find money or other items of value on them. The terrified
Jews quietly tossed away the rest of their belongings along the way.

Yissachar Szwarc was
fortunate  he was spared the torment of exile. He died one
day prior to the expulsion, and the Jews brought him by a hand wagon to a
Jewish grave in the Zgierz cemetery.

A few Jewish families remained
in Zgierz. For the most part, they were tradesmen, shoemakers and tailors,
with their families. The Germans were in need of their vocations. A few names
of those that remained are known: Dawidowicz, Blanket, Ziskind, the two Waller
shoemakers, Wroclawski and others.

Emanuel Ringelblum, in his
notes written in the Warsaw Ghetto, provides some incomplete information about
the Jews in Zgierz. On October 4, 1940, he writes that he heard about the
expulsion of the Jews of Zgierz. Ringelblum does not mention the date of the
expulsion. It is possible that the news of the expulsion of December 1939
reached him late. It is also possible that he was writing of a new expulsion
of Jews, who arrived in Zgierz from other places during the course of 1940. In
those notes, Ringelblum further writes that the Jews of Zgierz (he does not
give the number of those remaining Jews) had the right to live in the
surrounding villages, but the Germans permitted the peasants to sell the Jews
only limited amounts of food. From that note, we can deduce that the Jews were
forbidden from living in the city itself.

A later bit of information
about the group of Jews in Zgierz comes from a German document from the
beginning of September 1941. According to the document, there were 81 Jews in
Zgierz (22 men, 30 women, 22 children, and 7 elderly). These were tradesmen
who were needed by the Germans, and their families. On January 12, 1942, that
group, now numbering 84 or 85 people, was transferred to the Lodzer Ghetto.
The Jews were transported to Lodz in wagons with all of their belongings, even
with relatively large reserves of food and wooden materials. Prior to the
transport, there was a long correspondence between the government president
Eibelher, the Lodzer Ghetto authorities, and the mayor (bergenmeister) of
Zgierz. As a result of this correspondence, the government president gave his
approval on September 5, 1941 for the transport, which was to take place, as
mentioned, four months later. The reason for this is not clear. It is
worthwhile to note that the transfer of the group of Zgierz Jews to Lodz was
probably tied up with the general German plan of creating a central
concentration point of all the Jews of Warthegau in the Lodzer Ghetto.

The fate of the expelled Zgierz
Jews was exactly the same as the fate of the other residents of the Lodzer
Ghetto. Both the earlier refugees, and the Jews driven out of Zgierz, suffered
the tragic fate of the settlements to which they came.

Approximately 350 Zgierz Jews
survived the war. A few of them survived the hell of the German concentration
or work camps. A few came back from Soviet Russia. In the first post-war
years, about 60 Jews of Zgierz lived in Poland. Most lived in Lodz or in Lower
Silesia. A small number returned to Zgierz: Gittel Grand-Fein, her brother
Avraham David, Aharon Zeidel and his wife, Ketler, Chaim Szulcz, Yitzchak
Zelgaw, Przedworski, Jakubowicz, Grynbaum, the two Feldman brothers, Honigstok,
and others.

The survivors did not remain
for long amongst the ruins of the Jewish community of Zgierz, and they
gradually left the city.

{550}

List of Sources

The Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem: S. 26, No. 1208 – Committee on the Affairs of the Polish Jews, Jerusalem, April 1941 (minutes of the testimony before the United Committee for Aid to Polish Jews in Jerusalem on August 28, 1940)

The Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem: Historical questionnaire number 536.

The Synagogue is Burning!

by Chaim Zalman Russ

From Sunday September 3rd until Wednesday September 6th 1939, German bombs fell on Zgierz, especially in the afternoon and evening
hours. Only during the night was it quiet. On Thursday, September 7th, around 10:00 a.m., the first German soldiers were seen on the streets of
Zgierz. Throughout the entire day, the sounds of gunshots and the crackle of
machine guns could be heard. Nevertheless, a few Jews ventured out of their
hiding places.

On the next day, Friday,
throughout the entire morning, they grabbed Jews from their homes and streets
and locked them in the local church. From time to time, people thought that
they would tear down or burn the church. For three whole days, until Sunday,
the unfortunate ones were help in very cramped conditions, without food or
drink. They were all fried that afternoon.

I do not remember if there were
any Jewish casualties from the bombardment, but I do know that some Jews were
wounded. On Sunday morning, the murderers set the synagogue on fire, however
the surrounding neighbors succeeded in saving the Torah scrolls. The Germans
set the synagogue on fire a second time, and that time, it was burnt down
completely. This took place on the 14th of Cheshvan, 27th October, 1940*. That same day, I organized a minyan (prayer quorum) in the
home of my eldest brother-in-law Yechiel Meir Kotek of blessed memory, with
whom I lived, for that day was the yahrzeit of my father Fishel, may G-d
remember him, who died in the year 5697 (1936) [10].

In the midst of the prayers, a
few Poles who worked in the same courtyard came in and informed us that the
synagogue was on fire, and had been completely destroyed. With weeping and
screaming, Yankel Himel arose stood up and called out:

Woe Jews, how can I pray
when our holy synagogue is burning?! 

He removed his tallis and
tefillin and wanted to run there. It took time for us to calm him down and
remind him that he is needed for the minyan, and he should remain until the
prayers are finished.

On the Sabbath of November 18th, 1939, Jews were ordered under the threat of death to wear the yellow badge.
The next day, on Sunday afternoon, the murderers drove several hundred Jews
into the new market place and into the fire station, and forced them to lie
down with their faces to the ground, which was wet and muddy. The unfortunate
people were goaded and beaten, and there were a few casualties. As far as I
remember, Shlomo Bialystocki and Yechiel Kompel were killed that day.

On Monday, November 20th, I decided to leave Zgierz. I went to Lodz on the tramway. In those times,
such a journey was fraught with the peril of death. The walls of the tramcars
were sprinkled with blood  and the conductor told me that one-day
earlier, a few Jews were killed there

{553}

Jews of Zgierz in the Warsaw Ghetto (from a letter to Wolf Fisher)

by Mary Fisher-Fishman of Montreal

With regard to a Zgierz
Landsmanschaft [11]  such did not exist at all. Furthermore,
there were not a large number of Zgierz Jews there. Most of them went to Lodz
or the Warsaw area. I cannot remember the name of the town, which was not
overtaken by the Reich. There, from Zgierz, there was the Boaz
family, the father of Genia of blessed memory. Tears welled up in his eyes
when I brought him on Purim a spirited little something. At the end of
the deportation, he was held in a cellar, full of mice. Hid daughter told me
that at the time of the aktion that grabbed older people There, there
was also the sister of Boaz-Tracki  Andzia. Her son was run over in the
Ghetto.

Kohn with the long beard from
the mill (he was also run over on the street) was in the Warsaw Ghetto, as was
Gincberg with his wife and son, of blessed memory. He died from typhus in
Radom. Jeszik Gross and Falcza with their child were killed during the
deportations. Falcza Braun, the daughter of Herman Braun of Warsaw, was a
well-known singer in the Ghetto. She composed and wrote the well-known song
Through walls, through holes, and through fences. I believe that I
am the only one who remembers and knows the melody. It is difficult for me to
write about the Siedlowskis (Moshele and his wife). They literally died of
hunger. I kept them alive as long as it was possible to move about in the
city. Same with the Dawidowiczs  I brought them bread and potatoes. I
did this in memory of their children  Ali and the others, and also in
memory of the devotion of these people to me when I was treated as one of them
in their home.

Do you know what Zgierz Jews
did in the Ghetto? -- They died of hunger! Only one, Yaakov Albersztejn acted
deplorably. He once stated: I fear that this war will end. He
turned me over to the police when he caught me. He gorged himself, and was
happy. What overcame that person  nobody knew. The Haron family was
also in Warsaw, and had what to survive. They ate in the same kitchen as the
Dawidowiczs, as long as they could move about and pay. The fate of the
Zylberberg (Genia) family, Itzik of blessed memory's wife, was tragic. The
children and parents fell like flies. The large family had no recourse. Only
Genia herself had where to eat. The Dawidowicz, Itzik's children and myself,
young and capable, with a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, sold coupons on
Gensze Street. I had brought them from Warsaw in great amounts and stored in
the cellar, thereby risking my life. Later, when Piniush of blessed memory
returned from the Russian side, he took part as well. Unfortunately, there was
no longer any merchandise.

We could still own gold and
jewelry  and I had an idea. We also smuggled old items, and Poles would
come into the Ghetto and exchange them for a piece of bread or butter.

On Meizels Street # 3, where we
lived along with our uncles the Bergers, one of our neighbors was the Zgierzer
Rabbi, who lived at # 7. Once, my brother-in-law of blessed memory took me
along to the rabbi, and brought him a few Zlotys for Passover. He introduced
me to his daughter-in-law. The rabbi blessed me, and talked about my father,
Shimon Fiszer of blessed memory.

As I have already written, the
Zgierzers in Warsaw were not organized. I was culturally active as long as it
was possible, while we still had what to eat. I found myself together with H.
Wynik, as far as I remember. I spoke to him twice. At that time, I was still
in contact with the historian Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum. From that time, I lost
track of him.

I transcribed my poem Yom
Kippur from memory. I also wrote a poem about Zgierz, leaving out almost
nothing that is important to perpetuate. I wrote it only for myself, in
Polish, not for the Yizkor book.

I wrote a great deal, but not
what you requested. As I myself know, my head is full of a strange chaos, and
a rush toward memory, when I think about those terrible days  and in the
end, nothing comes out. Therefore, Passover is not the time for this. Indeed,
I wanted to answer you earlier.

TRANSLATOR'S FOOTNOTES

1. This is a play on the first verse of Psalm 137, the famous Psalm that begins
By the Rivers of Babylon . This section contains many
snippets of biblical verses and elegies (Kinot) of Tisha Beov. Back

7. From the context, it seems as if this is the trash collection. Smiec is the
Polish word for trash.Back

8. A tallis (tallit) is a ritual prayer shawl worn by Jewish males during
prayer. A parochet is the ornamental covering of the holy ark in the
synagogue. Tefillin are the phylacteries worn by Jewish men during weekday
morning prayers in accordance with a biblical command. Mezuzas are specific
sections of the Torah, written on parchment, often encased in an ornamental
casing and affixed upon doorposts in keeping with a biblical command.Back

10. On the day of the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of a parent, is proper to
recite the daily services with a prayer quorum, and to recite the Kaddish
prayer. A prayer quorum (minyan) consists of 10 males over the age of 13.Back

11. This word usually connotes an organization of emigres from a certain place
in a new country (such as the Zgierz Landsmanschaft in the United States or in
Israel).Back

* Note by Dr. Avner Falk: This was a typo in the original Yiddish. Zgierz synagogue was burned down completely on 27th October 1940. It actually happened on October 27, 1939, as it says earlier on that page, in the paragraph beginning with The culmination point Back

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